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NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Fortunate Islands
Pfund, Charles D.
Charles D. Pfund is a New York State correctional officer and the author of Antediluvian World: The End of the Myth[1079]. His website(b) begins with an examination of a 1482 map by the Italian cartographer Francesco Berlinghieri. A version of his map depicts the Fortunate Islands as a large island with mountains in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa. Pfund then
compares this speculative map with underwater features in the region revealed by modern technology and perceives a match. Next he proceeds to identify these features as Atlantis, which include the Canaries in the south stretching northward to include the Madeira archipelago.
Among the many other controversial claims made by Pfund is a 10,000 BC date for the existence of Atlantis, that Achilles was Atlas and that Atlanteans resettled Greece after the Flood!
Pfund then unexpectedly includes a discussion on ancient ‘divination livers’(c) found in Mesopotamia and claims that some of them represent his Atlantis in the Atlantic! It is clear that the author’s source of inspiration is the work of Donnelly, whom he refers to as the ‘Great’ Ignatius Donnelly (although omitted from the index!).
I am not convinced. However, anyone wishing to investigate his ideas further must read his first book before tackling the second one. Overall, whatever one might think about Pfund’s theories, you cannot help admiring the level of research that went into the writing of this book. In my opinion, the input of a professional editor would have improved the text as there is a lot of repetition, even unnecessarily repeating images. There is also an irritating overuse of bold text and underlining, reminiscent of tabloid newspapers.
Pfund’s second book, Antediluvian World: A New Interpretation of Plato’s Writings on Atlantis [1754] was published in 2019 in which he continues his claim of a Stone Age Atlantis in the Atlantic. He devotes much of the book to offering his translation of Plato’s Atlantis texts. For good measure, he combines this with biblical commentary as well as a discussion of ‘liver maps’. Again the lack of an editor is obvious with Pfund continually referring to himself as “the author of this work”. Again he is rather short on evidence but long on speculation.
>We were also promised a third volume, which duly arrived in 2021 with the title of Antediluvian World: Shadows of the Fallen [2089]. More information is available on Pfund’s website(a) including some sample chapters. From the little that I have read, his latest book seems to be a rehash of much of the previous offerings including a global Ice Age religion, ‘liver’ maps and Atlantis in the Atlantic.<
(a) ATLANTIS MAPPED – CHARLES D. PFUND *
(b) http://atlantismapped.com/index.html
(c) Model liver for divination | Louvre Museum | Paris (archive.org)
Macaronesia
Macaronesia is the term used to collectively describe some of the island groups in the Atlantic Ocean. Included are the Canary, Azores, Madeira & Cape Verde archipelagos of which some or all are considered remnants of Atlantis.
Also see Fortunate Isles
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands are situated in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco. They were (re)discovered in 1402 by Jean de Béthencourt (1362-1425). He found the fair-skinned Guanches living on some of the islands. He described them as cave dwellers. After overthrowing the local chiefs, de Béthancourt became King of the Canaries under King Henry III of Castile.
However, there has been widespread acceptance of the idea that the Berbers of North Africa established the first populations on the islands. Recently (2019) published DNA studies have reinforced this concept, putting the arrival of the Berbers at around 1000 AD(h).
Pliny the Elder is frequently quoted to provide the etymology of the name, where he claims that it is derived from a species of large dog – canis in Latin – found there in ancient times. This derivation is disputed by the historian and Arabist, Paul Lunde, who prefers the idea that the islands were named after an ancient people who lived on the opposite mainland and who now inhabit north-eastern Nigeria and are known today as the Kanuri. Pliny also records that the islands were uninhabited but had ancient ruined buildings when visited by the Carthaginians. Centuries later they were inhabited by a Berber people known as the Guanches who were finally conquered by the Spanish in the 15th century. When sea levels were lower during the last Ice Age, the land area of the islands would have been more extensive and a possible claimant as the location of some or part of Plato’s empire of Atlantis.
A popular belief is that the Canaries were the location of the Garden of Hesperides referred to in Greek mythology. However, this identification is difficult to substantiate firmly.
Frank Joseph noted[216] how the islands conform in many ways to Plato’s description of Atlantis. Natural hot and cold springs are to be found there, as are red, white and black rock, a combination also observed on the Azores and elsewhere. In the past, the Canaries have been densely forested and also contain rivers and fertile plains that produce a variety of fruit.
In the 2nd century AD, the Greek astronomer and geographer Ptolemy suggested that the prime meridian should be located through the Canaries, then known as the Fortunate Islands.
The earliest suggestion of a connection between the Canaries and Atlantis was proposed by Athanasius Kircher in 1664, referring to the Guanches as the last Atlanteans and the islands as the remains of Plato’s lost land.
Ignatius Donnelly, who did so much to kick-start modern interest in Atlantis, considered that the Canaries, Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde Islands were its remnants. However, a newspaper report from 1899(g) refers back to a local cleric and historian, José Viera y Claviejo, who proposed around the beginning of the 19th century that the Canaries, the Azores and Madeira were remnants of Atlantis, nearly a century before Donnelly.
Gilbert De Jong is a Dutch landscape designer with an interest in investigating the mysteries of our ancient past. His contention is that Atlantis was located at El Fuerte – in the Canary Islands.
In 1984, Manuel Gómez Márquez also ‘revealed’ the Canaries as the location of Atlantis in a book[0599] using the Piri Reis Map as a source.
One of the more recent proponents of a Canarian location for Atlantis is Charles D. Pfund in his extensive 2011 book, Antediluvian World: The End of the Myth[1079].
A website dealing with a variety of British and World mysteries(d) has a series of papers on Atlantis and reluctantly considers the Canaries as the most likely location of Plato’s lost land.
In 1939 the Ahnenerbe, led by theologian turned archaeologist Otto Huth, planned to visit the Canaries to study Guanche mummies as part of their efforts to find the Aryan homeland and locate Atlantis. However, the outbreak of war postponed the trip, but the Spanish dictator, General Franco, at the behest of his Nazi mentors appointed his archaeologist friend Julio Martinez Santa Olalla to carry out investigations on their behalf.
In 2008, Francisco Gracia Alonso, professor of history at the University of Barcelona published a book revealing the level of cooperation between Franco’s archaeologists and the Nazi Ahnenerbe(c)(k). An article(j) in The Telegraph in the UK, claimed that Spanish fascists “wanted to promote the idea that the Aryan race could be traced to the Canary Islands, amid claims they were all that remained of the lost continent of Atlantis.”
A 2010 book, Nazi Archaeology in the Canary Islands [762] by author and journalist Jaime Rubio Rosales also explores the whole subject of the Spanish links with the Ahnenerbe.
Thor Heyerdahl inspected the pyramids at Guimar and was convinced of their ceremonial use in ancient times(b). Atlantisforschung has a lengthy article about the stepped pyramids of the Canaries, which also refers to stepped pyramids in Sicily and Sardinia(i). The late Philip Coppens also wrote an article(e) on these structures. A 2015 article(f) can now be added to this list.
>>August 14, 2024, brought a number of ‘Atlantis Found?’ headlines following the discovery of several large sunken islands near the Canaries(l). What I found strange, is that the these islands disappeared beneath the waves millions of years ago and could have no connection with Plato’s Atlantis, which at the earliest, he claimed to have been submerged around 9600 BC. Thorwald C. Franke dug deeper and revealed that the Atlantis association may, at best, have been a journalistic embellishment or at worst, a hoax(m).<<
(b) https://www.travelexplorations.com/guimar-tenerife-the-lost-pyramids-in-europe.4497328-25678.html
(c) www.archaeologybulletin.org/article/download/bha.18102/104 (Link broken)
(d) Lost City Atlantis – Aquiziam (archive.org) OR See Archive 3028
(e) Archive 2142)
(f) https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/mystery-guanches-and-pyramids-tenerife-003232
(g) https://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/111076350?searchTerm=Atlantis discovered&searchLimits=
(i) Die Schwarzen Pyramiden von Teneriffa – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) (Eng)
(l) https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1935828/canary-islands-africa-islands-atlantis *
(m) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_newsl_archive.htm (#226) *